"The odd part about Ophelia is seeing this intensification take place in what's normally a much cooler region of the Atlantic Ocean," CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar added.
Some British media pointed out that the storm was due to arrive 30 years to the day after the "Great Storm of 1987" -- which made landfall in Cornwall, southwest England, with winds of 120 mph (about 190 kph).
Violent and destructive" wind gusts of 176 kilometers per hour (109 miles per hour) were recorded at Fastnet Rock, off the coast of Cork"

Just strange seeing a hurricane go that far north

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/16/weather/ophelia-ireland-arrival/index.html

i predict within 5 yrs a hurricane will go all the way to Iceland

It has happened before, it will happen again.

well you're darn close if you mean what was left over of Hurricane Nicole in 2016 but by the time it got to Iceland it was no longer a hurricane - winds reached ? .....not sure but i don't think it was a Hurricane by the time it was at its closest point to Iceland

unfortunately we don't yet make the proper distinction between storms of a tropical origin, and storms of northern origin. As the climate warms, more tropical systems will make their way farther north and east.
Ophelia was only category 1 by the time she hit Ireland, but the great storm reached cat2 equivalents, and cat 3 winds aren't unknown, so we're going to have to re-visit the science at some point, to better understand these systems. The NOAA and American Hurricane Centre very kindly provided data and forecasts this time, up to 5 days in advance, as our own forecasters were completely out of their depth, but in the future we are going to need our own experts and data centre to handle these increasingly tropical events.

87 was interesting in that trapped tropical heat in the bay of Biscay, re-organised into bands and formed an eye, before proceeding up to Norfolk via the south coast. Though her cyclo-genesis has been attributed to the Jet stream, the fact that her remnants were of tropical origin rather than polar, greatly added to the destruction, and she is still regularly mis-classified using that old adage 'we don't get hurricanes in Britain'. With Ophelia, great storm and many, many others; we did then, do now, and will in the future.

Tropical systems are classified by the Saffir-Simpson scale, polar systems by Beaufort. Unfortunately Beaufort only reaches category 1 equivalents, and needs to be supplanted when storms rise above that - which they frequently do.

Was watching American news this AM and they mentioned Ireland and England being hit by this storm. The track of the storm passed over Scotland not England.

Indeed, all we had here were blustery winds and a martian atmosphere vibe with a red sun and amber glow caused by Ophelia whipping up Sahara sand combined with Iberian forest fire smoke.
It looked like something out of the 'Book of Revelations' here in the centre of England.
'Just my luck' I thought, just get me fibre broadband enabled and the world ends

Heh, that reminds me of a goof the American writers on the show "Turn" made with one of the early episodes from season 1 where one of the British officers mentions the "Royal Army".

Yea same thing in London.
It was really earie

According to US media, Wales is apparently a mythical island off the coast of France and never to be mentioned.

My son and I got a big chuckle out of a thing we saw when they referred to something happening "West of England."

On the news here it was the hill fires in Portugal that caused the haze, which the rain from Ophelia managed to put out.

It was hot here for the time of year reaching 26c and I was trimming the hedge with my chainsaw, boy I was glad to hit the hot tub after I had finished, it ended up being a beautiful clear night here after the red haze all day.